1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the analysis of a network of computing entities, such as, for example, personal computers, workstations and servers, and a plurality of infrastructure elements to facilitate their interconnection such as cables, routers, switches and hubs. Increasingly, large organisations which rely on such networks in order to perform their commercial activities, yet whose core commercial activities do not relate to computing infrastructure or its management outsource administration of their computing networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Software such as HP OPENVIEW provides for the administration of such networks, remotely where desirable, by an administrator, by modelling the network to enable the monitoring and analysis of faults. The significance of the ability to model a network when taking over administration of a sizeable network, is that it is not unusual for the administrator not to have complete knowledge of the elements within it or its topography. A model can be obtained, inter alia, by the installation of software agents on various computing entities which form part of the network infrastructure, and which monitor a variety of parameters, typically related to the implementation of various protocols (of a hierarchy of networking protocols), returning either data, either in the form that it is acquired, or condensed into a statistical form.
Certain elements of network infrastructure, however, do not support the use of software agents, either because they are simply physically not configured to store and/or execute software, or because network policy prevents agents being installed on them (for example because of confidentiality reasons). Accordingly it is not possible to monitor any of the various parameters described above at the network nodes provided by these ‘dumb’ infrastructure elements.